Aaron Copland
Few figures in American music loom as large as Aaron Copland. As one of the first wave of literary and musical expatriates in Paris during the 1920s, Copland returned to the United States with the means to assume, for the next half-century, a central role in American music as composer, promoter, and educator. His sheer popularity and iconic status are such that his music has transcended the concert hall and entered the popular consciousness; it both accompanies solemn and joyous celebrations the world over (Fanfare for the Common Man) and punctuated the familiar words "Beef: It's What's for Dinner!" (Rodeo) for millions of television viewers.
Copland was the youngest of five children born to Harris and Sarah Copland, Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who owned a department store in Brooklyn. He did not take formal piano lessons until he was 13, by which time he had also begun writing small pieces. Instead of attending college, Copland studied theory and composition with Rubin Goldmark and piano with Victor Wittgenstein and Clarence Adler, and attended as many concerts, operas, and ballets as possible. In 1921, he went to Fontainebleau, France, taking conducting and composition classes at the American Conservatory. Copland went on to study in Paris with Ricardo Viñes and Nadia Boulanger and spent the next three years soaking up all the European culture, both new and old, that he could. He learned to admire not only composers like Stravinsky, Milhaud, Fauré, and Mahler, but others such as author André Gide. Boulanger's performance of Copland's 1924 Organ Symphony with Koussevitzky was the beginning of a friendship between the conductor and composer that led to Copland teaching at the Berkshire Music Center (Tanglewood) from 1940 until 1965.
After his return to America, Copland drifted toward an incisive, austere style that captured something of the sobriety of Depression-torn America. The most representative work of this period -- the Piano Variations (1930) -- remains one of the composer's seminal efforts. He tried to avoid taking a university position, instead writing for journals and newspapers, organizing concerts, and taking on administrative duties for composers' organizations, trying to promote American music. By the mid-'30s, taking the direct engagement of and communication with audiences as one of his central tenets, Copland's compositions developed (in parallel with other composers like Virgil Thomson and Roy Harris) an "American" style marked by folk influences, a new melodic and harmonic simplicity, and an appealing directness free from intellectual pretension. This is nowhere more in evidence than in Copland's ballets of this period, and it finally earned him the respect of the general public.
While Copland gradually became less prolific from the mid-'50s on, he continued to experiment and explore "fresh" means of musical expression, including a highly individual adoption of 12-tone principles in works like the Piano Fantasy and Connotations for orchestra. Still, the fundamentally lyrical nature of Copland's language remained intact and occasionally emerged -- with an often surprising retrospective air -- in works like the Duo for flute and piano (1971). He continued to teach and write and received numerous awards both in America and abroad. In 1958, he began conducting orchestras around the world, performing works by 80 other composers as well as his own over the next 20 years. By the mid-'70s, Copland had for all intents and purposes ceased composing. One of the last of his creative accomplishments was the completion of his two-volume autobiography (with musicologist Vivian Perlis), an essential document in understanding the growth of American music in the 20th century.
© TiVo Staff /TiVo
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Danzon Cubano, Three Blues,Our Town
World - Released by TP4 Music on Jan 6, 2022
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Bernstein Conducts Copland
New York Philharmonic, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein
Classical - Released by Music Manager on Feb 6, 2013
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Contemporary American Composers : Aaron Copland / "Billy the Kid", Fred Grofé / "Rodeo" & "Grand Canyon"
Classical - Released by ISIS on Jul 15, 2016
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Aaron Copland: Violin Sonata, Trio, Piano Sonata
Classical - Released by NWCRI on Jun 1, 2010
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Contemporary American Music (Remastered)
Barber, Diamond, Aaron Copland, Creston
Classical - Released by RevOla on May 9, 2019
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The Great Conductors: Aaron Copland (Remastered 2016)
London Symphony Orchestra, Leo Smit, Aaron Copland, Radio Rome Symphony Orchestra
Classical - Released by Jube Classic on Apr 1, 2016
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Barber: Concerto pour violon - Copland: Concerto pour piano (Mono Version)
Louis Kaufman, Leo Smit, Aaron Copland
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on Jan 1, 1956
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Finnegan's Wake
Classical - Released by Albany Records on Sep 1, 2004
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Copland Music For Piano Duo (Produced)
Arianna Goldina and Rémy Loumbrozo
Classical - Released by Phoenix USA on Apr 15, 2004
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Music by My Friends
Classical - Released by Albany Records on Oct 1, 2004
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Works for Violin and Piano
Classical - Released by Globe on Jun 3, 2016
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Copland: Symphony No. 3 (Transferred from the Original Everest Records Master Tapes)
London Symphony Orchestra, Aaron Copland
Classical - Released by Everest on Oct 6, 2017
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Aaron Copland & Leonard Bernstein Play Their Works
Classical - Released by Naxos Classical Archives on Jan 1, 2013
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Copland: Appalachian Spring / Gould: Spirituals for String Choir and Orchestra
Classical - Released by Everest Records on Jul 10, 1958
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Copland: Third Symphony
Aaron Copland, London Symphony Orchestra
Classical - Released by Music Manager on Sep 12, 2019
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Drunk as Hell
Country - Released by Aaron Copeland on Oct 8, 2018
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American Composers
Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, Aaron Copland, Sir Eugene Goosens
Classical - Released by Music Manager on Nov 4, 2015
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Aaron Copland: Orchestral Variations - Alfonso Letelier - Aculeo, Suite for Orchestra
The Louisville Orchestra, Robert Whitney
Classical - Released by First Edition on Jan 14, 2014
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Copland: Modern Vocal Premieres - Old American Songs, Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson - Warfield, Lipton, and Copland
Aaron Copland, William Warfield, Martha Lipton
Classical - Released by Soundmark on Oct 1, 1951
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Copland: Appalachian Spring Suite (Recorded 1945) (Live)
New York Philharmonic, Artur Rodzinski
Classical - Released by New York Philharmonic on Dec 8, 2017
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Copland: Appalachian Spring - The Tender Land Suite
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Aaron Copland
Classical - Released by Naxos Classical Archives on Jun 1, 2012
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